


Well, Fuck

by karmy18



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), kara danvers and lena luthor - Fandom, supercorp - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Friendship, Kara is a writer, and then, and then Lena ended things, and then she goes on to write a tv show that's about them, relationship, that's the arc of the story, the ones people write love songs about, the unconditional sort of love, two people loving each other, what if Kara and Lena had a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23727982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmy18/pseuds/karmy18
Summary: This is an AU - No Powers story. Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor had an established relationship. Years after, Lena hears about a popular tv show. She watches it to find herself on screen. Somewhere along the line, after their break up, Kara stopped being a journalist and became a tv writer and now a show runner. It's them on screen, albeit different names, but it's them and their story through and through.
Relationships: Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 46
Kudos: 366





	1. Chapter 1

Lena couldn’t help but hear the conversation Jess was having. “Can you believe that last episode? I hate that I have to wait another week before I get to see what happened.”

Lena paused before entering her office. She couldn’t remember the last time she had heard Jess be genuinely excited about something. She doubted that Jess realized she was there. “What show are you talking about?”

Jess looks up at the CEO.Lena witnesses a look of panic cross her face .The woman who she was talking to, Lena recognized her as someone from legal, left with out another word. Jess clears her throat.“It’s just a show I watch.”

“It sounded like you really enjoy watching it.”

She lets out a nervous laugh. “It’s my new favorite.”

Lena smiles urging her on.

“It’s called _Even Now_ , I doubt you have time to watch tv shows but I have to say I don’t know the last time I saw a show that held me captive to the story.”

“I’ll have to check it out then.” Lena takes a breath before shifting back to business mode. “Is the conference call for nine still on?”

Jess checks her computer. “Yes, it is Ms. Luthor.”

“Perfect. And Jess you can call me Lena. I know we’ve talked about it before.” She waits for an affirmation before she moves onto the next thing. “When Ms. Arias comes in later, send her right in.”  
“Will do.”

Lena opens the door to her office. The morning light floods in from the windows facing the rest of the city. She takes a seat and logs in. She had looked at her email as she ate breakfast at her apartment. She had planned the replies on the way in. She settled in, her hands finding their place on the keyboard.

That afternoon as Sam stands at the end of the meeting, Lena asks her. “When I came in today Jess was talking about some show called _Even Now_ with one of the other secretaries. Have you heard of it?”

“Ruby is obsessed with that show.” Sam shifts the bag on her hip. “She got me to watch it with her. I have to admit it’s not bad.”

She sifts through her brain for the right question. “How many episodes are there?”

“I think there are eight out. I started watching after episode three was out. I swear Ruby’s already seen every episode multiple times. She can’t stop talking about it.”

Lena smiles. “She must really like it.”

Sam agrees. “It’s on on Sundays so no need to worry about missing it because of work.”

She’s only half kidding when she says it. “Does everyone think all that I do is work?”

Sam scoffs. “I received an email from you after two am last Wednesday.”

Lena plays along. “Point taken. But I do go home at some point.”

“Well, with all that extra time you have let me know if you do give it a try. There’s some good representation in it. Of all the shows Ruby could fall in love with I’m a little glad it’s this one.”

It was closing time for everyone in the office around five but Lena doesn’t leave until closer to seven. She decides on the way home to give the show a try and watch it. She could set aside work for one night.It had been ages since she had sunk her teeth into a show, none the less one that had come out recently.

Lena queues up the pilot after she re-heated her dinner. She sits down on her white couch, the tv in front of her nearly taking up the whole wall. She had had to re-enter her wifi password and her login info again.

After the first scene and the theme song there’s a seed of dread within her. It morphs into shear disbelief by the last ten minutes. It’s only in the last three minutes does it become undeniable.

Kara’s name scrolls up in the credits. It’s the last bit of proof she needs to confirm it.

 _Even Now_ is them. Lena had just watched how they had met nearly ten years ago. It had been during a meeting for the Universities Colleges Against Cancer club. Lena had seen Kara eat two thirds of a Papa Johns pizza before Kara realized someone was looking at her. Then they were grouped together for an ice breaker. Lena had off handily mentioned that she was studying chemistry and mechanical engineering and it was the first time coming to a meeting. She learned minutes later that Kara was a member of the club’s executive board.

When the meeting had let out Kara had jogged to catch up to Lena. She had found her on the stairs leading out of the building. Kara had told her that she hoped she would come to the next meeting. Lena wasn’t thinking as she pulled out her phone and asked Kara for her number. She sent her a text message as they stood huddled together so that Kara had hers too.

Their song had faded in. It was the song that Kara had put on each of the burned CDs she had made for Lena.She still had them somewhere in a dusty box. It was her Kara box not that she put a label on it.

The final shot was of the woman playing Kara looking at Lena’s character as she walked away. Kara’s gaze never wavered. Lena had wanted to look over her shoulder but being part of the Luthor family meant never looking back. It wasn’t something she had ever been able to unlearn. Lena remembered how it felt when her phone buzzed in her jeans pocket a block later. She couldn’t help but be surprised that it was from Kara. Lena had replied to her promising that they would see each other again. The next time they saw each other was before the next meeting. It hadn’t taken much time at all.

The second episode starts as Lena gapes at the screen.

Kara, her ex was supposed to be a journalist. That’s what she had been studying when they had met and Lena was in her first masters program. When they had broken up Kara was working at Catco and Lena was the head of research and development at Luthor Corp.

She had lost track. There was the point eighteen months after they broke up where Lena thought she should be over Kara by now. So Lena had deleted the alerts that had pushed a copy of every article Kara had published to her primary email. A year after, Lena told herself to stop looking for Kara in every crowded room she entered. She had put Kara behind her. She was part of her past. She was supposed to stay there. But she was watching herself on her own tv screen. Sure her name was changed, so was Kara. Kara was the fucking show runner of _Even Now_ and had had the writing credentials for the pilot.

Lena didn’t know what the next thing to do was. So she sat on her couch which wasn’t even comfortable for one episode let alone four before her tv asked her if she was still watching and then turned itself off.

Kara had made a tv show. It was about them.

How long had it been?

Not long enough for Lena to forget.

She thinks about it as she stares at her ceiling waiting for sleep to come. Their song plays over and over again in her head. It had been years. Lena had made a choice. That night she had learned that Kara did to. Their relationship was on screen. Lena didn’t know how to escape it. She had lost a part of herself when things ended with Kara. How could she not? She loved Kara. Not in the trite or cliche way that people said I love you every day. But in the unconditional way a person wrote love songs and stories about. Lena had never been sure about much in her life before she had met Kara. She was doing what she thought her family had wanted. She was hoping for that to make her feel fulfilled, the emotion she longed for. She was hoping that one day she would feel like she actually mattered.

Then she had met Kara.

Thing were supposed to be over between them. They had been over.

Until now.

Lena couldn’t run from this.

Forgetting Kara had always been an impossibility.


	2. Chapter 2

Lena had made the decision not to research the hell out of _Even Now_. She didn’t have it within her to search for Kara’s name. She had known that she had been out living her life since everything happened between them. But that didn’t mean she had to know every detail about her life. She lost that right a long time ago. Not that she had ever had the right to begin with.

It was like the pilot showed, when Lena left she didn’t turn back. There was no looking back. Lena knew what she was leaving. Every damn time. The thing was Lena couldn’t forget.

Lena has a coffee in each hand. She places the one with almond milk and a packet of honey on Jess’ desk.

Her secretary looks up at her boss like a deer in headlights.

Lena tells herself she has to work more on her relationships within the office. She swore she wasn’t as scary as people thought of her to be.

She tries to smile. “I hope I got your order right.”

Jess takes a tentative sip. “You did, thank you.”

There’s a moment of nothingness between them. Lena had had a point. “That show you mentioned,” she takes a breath hoping to come off nonchalant, “ _Even Now_?”

Jess nods.

“I watched it.”

She sees Jess buy into the conversation, a few of her walls come down. “What did you think?”

“I liked it. You have good taste.”

The words come out in a rush. “I couldn’t believe the season finale the first time I watched it. I thought they would wait until the third season, at least, for them to get together.”

“Excuse me?”

She tries to backtrack. “I thought you said you saw it?”

“The first few episodes.”

“It’s been out for more than a week. I thought, you know the spoiler free rules.”

“You said they get together?”

“I didn’t mean to spoil Kathryn and Luna.”

Lena shifts her weight in her heels. She has to remind herself that she’s carrying a scalding hot coffee in her right hand. Kara had them together by the end of the season. “I thought most shows have at least twenty episodes in a season.”

“Some do but I like it when there are shorter seasons. There’s less filler. I mean eight episodes is a perfect number. There’s just enough episodes for the show runner to create an arc and execute on it.”

“I see.”

She didn’t see.

“Not to mention the press and critical reception they’ve gotten. Did you see that _Even Now_ was nominated for some awards already?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, I know they were nominated for the Critic’s Choice. Not to mention that they are getting accolades from LGBT+ groups.”

Jess goes on. Lena only picks up on a few words scattered about each sentence. She excuses herself to go to her office.

The coffee had done the trick but now she had more than she bargained for.

She plops down in her chair thankful that her office is empty. First there was the show. Then there was the fact that she was within the show. A younger version of herself and Kara. It was like she had barely tried to change the names, Kathryn and Luna?

Lena was going to have to watch the rest of the episodes now. She knew how they ended but she wasn’t going to trust herself until she saw it with her own eyes. Sure she had been there. She had been a witness and a participant. Now America was experiencing it too. What had Kara done?

Lena operates in autopilot for the entire day. She’s well practiced. It’s what she had done for the duration of her brother’s trial in order to function. She had learned to separate the different pieces of herself. There was work. There was family. There was whatever else was left.

It would be a stupid fucking understatement to say that this was ordinary. Because it wasn’t. But Lena could function on any given day regardless of the parameters. She was a Luthor through and through. It was more than a name. It was an air of confidence, a demeanor a set of executable traits.

Lena was her name whether she wanted to be or not. She had chosen it after all. By now it was forged in the flame. There was no hammer strong enough to break it. It was her life.

That Thursday Jack finds Lena in the lab.

He’s waiting for her as she looks away from her microscope. She jumps in her seat, she grabs onto the linoleum counter.

“You look like shit.”

“Do you talk to all of the executives like that?”

He weighs his response. “You’re not every executive.”

“Should I say do you talk to all of you exes like that?”

“Nope. But you’re my only ex I see if that matters.”

She straightens her shirt under her lab coat. “It doesn’t.”

They had been together before Lex went on a rampage and all of his other crimes were exposed. It was before either of them were the head of research and development. They were two engineers working eighty plus hours a week. Lena had once remarked after a shared dinner of take out, who else would put up with the hours and the stress that came alongside working on solutions for the future. Jack had put down his chopsticks. He looked her straight in the eye as if she was the one singular thing that mattered in life. It had hurt to look at him then. He was sincere. Whatever was going to come out of his mouth was going to be serious. So Lena had done the one thing that she knew that would halt the words from emerging, she kissed him.

It started there. It’s not that it lasted a long time. Lena chalked it up to the fact that work got in the way. She couldn’t afford to be dating someone she managed. Not the they had ever discussed what it was between them. Every time Jack had tried Lena shut him up with a kiss. Eventually he stopped trying to have the conversation unless he wanted to have sex. One thing lead to another. Jack saw what he was to her. He loved her. He also saw her. They were two different things to each other. That didn’t mean he wanted to sacrifice the time that they did have.

After what they had been through as a couple and then as friends and workmates the one person Lena could depend on to be honest with her was Jack.

He says it kinder this time. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

She didn’t know where to start.

“If I look that bad everyone must be wondering when I’m going to snap.”

He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Lena.”  
She doesn’t know how to respond. She never had when he was compassionate with her. She knew how to work with sarcasm and anger. She had grown to be an expert in navigating the feeding waters that was a board meeting dominated by white men. Genuine kindness extended towards her was Lena’s biggest weakness.

“Jack.”

She’s not prepared for the conversation. She had not intended to be found by him. “What time is it?”

“Time to go home.”

She doesn’t fight him as he hands her her laptop. They leave the building together. It was already dark outside. Lena’s not sure how long she had been in the basement lab.

They go to her place. It’s less than a three block walk.

Lena wonders where within her subconscious the hope of being taken care of existed. On a night like tonight it was close to the surface. It was the iceberg of her consciousness. There was always that part of her which wanted to love and be loved in return. Just because she didn’t want it to be there didn’t mean it didn’t exist. It made it louder the harder she fought against it.

Most days it was something she could keep at bay.

His hand was on the small of her back as she unlocked her apartment. She turned on the lights.

Jack navigates to the fridge trying to assemble a meal for them both.

It could have been before the last step Lena had taken with the Luthor name. Before she had taken the throne of CEO. Even before she was the head of research and development. It was like when Jack was new to the company. He had made Lena laugh the first day they worked together. It became his mission to do it every day he saw her.

She’s thankful they don’t sit on the couch in front of the tv. She doesn’t want to face it. Instead they sit at her glass kitchen table.

She eats without tasting the food.

He’s watching her. She knows he’s waiting. She thought that he was always waiting. It was never him. She thought that it was her. How could it not be? She was the one who drove people away. She didn’t see herself as lovable. She felt so disgustingly human, riddled with problems and short comings. She didn’t know who she was supposed to be. Every day she woke up and got out of bed. Whatever came next was an act.

They had engineered countless solutions together. That had been Lena’s favorite part of it all. They had been near equals in the equation. There was a balance. What got in the way was that Jack wanted to see her.

“So are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

She moves the last few bites of food around her plate with her fork. Her eyes stray towards the tv screen. She had seen it with her own eyes.

“Lena?”

“Jack you’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you.”

He’s concerned. “You can tell me anything.”

“Can I just show you.”

“Of course.”

His compassion stings.

She reaches for her tablet. She pulls up a random trailer for _Even Now_. He moves his plate aside. She slides the screen in front of him and presses play.

He looks up at the conclusion of the video after canceling the auto play function. “What am I looking at?”

She sighs.

“Do I need to get legal involved?”

“Jack.”

“Just tell me what’s going on so I can help you Lena.”

She can’t meet his eye. “That’s me.”

“What are you talking about.”

She tries again. “That’s me on the screen. She changed my name.”

“Lena?”

Now that she has said it she can’t stop. “That’s our story. She made it into a fucking tv show and everyone’s watching it. I haven’t talked to her in years Jack. And now this, she put us up in front of millions of people.”

“I didn’t,”

“How could you? I didn’t know until I watched the show. She wove us into every scene. All of that happened.”

He was a problem solver through and through. “What do you need me to do?”

“There’s nothing to fix Jack. She deserves to have her own life.” She swallows hard. “I never thought that it would come to this. I’m just a person.”

“That’s not true. You’re a catch.”

“Jack, I’m just a person. She knew that, I always told her that.” A tear escapes. It cascades down her cheek. There’s no stopping now. “I didn’t know, I never knew that’s what I was to her.”

Jack doesn’t say anything.

She feels alien as she cries. The emotions had been stowed away just like that box she had kept for some god forsaken reason.

“It’s us. That’s us. It’s our story.”

He sits with her and waits as she gets it out.

She offers to let him stay the night. He politely refuses.

“Are you sure?”

He kisses her head in response. “I’m sure.”

He doesn’t tell her that he would love to stay the night. He had always wanted to be that person for her. It’s not right. He wasn’t right for her. He sees that now. It’s not something either of them can change.

He stands in the doorway. “Lena?”

She meets his eyes.

“It’ll be okay.”

She doesn’t believe him but she agrees. It’s easier somehow. After everything. The next morning or maybe it was a matter of hours from then she was going to have to be CEO. She was the person in charge. She had faked it until she had made it. Now that she had made it, it was like driving alone at night. A car would occasionally pass by, but they weren’t going the same way that she was. Her headlights illuminated what was just ahead of her. She knew there was more that she couldn’t see than what she did see. Life was passing her by.

He knows now.

He leaves. Lena locks up after him. She rests against the door closing her eyes. Someone else in the world knew now. One more person. It wasn’t just between her and Kara, and now the people who watched her show. He was her person. She had told him her side of it. He knew but he didn’t love her any less.

She still had episodes to watch. She would have to witness herself falling in love with Kara all over again.

The thing that weighed most on her mind was what she was going to say to her. Years lay between them and who they once were. Lena still had such an image of Kara in her mind. It kept her warm on the days she felt like the next second couldn’t come quick enough.

She had put the buffer of silence between them. Now she was going to have to be the one to sever that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit longer. I'm still trying to find my pace for this story. But in particular, I hope that this chapter does the establishing work to give a more well rounded picture of this world.  
> Next chapter Kara will enter the story.  
> As always thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

The meeting was winding down. Everyone was standing up and milling around talking. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out staring at the screen.

She said it to her manager who was surrounded by network people, “I have to take this.”

She walked away putting the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

Lena took a breath. “Hello Kara.”

“Lena.”

She turns a series of corners to find an empty hallway.

Kara sits down. She puts her head on her knees. She doesn’t know what’s going on. “You called me?”

She hears her sigh on the other line. “Kara.”

“I just got out of a meeting.”

Lena could have said the same thing.

She says her name a third time.

Kara freezes. “You watched it.”

“Of course I did.”

“I changed the names.”

“It’s us.”

“I didn’t know if you would ever see it.” She tries to correct herself. “I remember that you didn’t watch very much tv. Not to mention you have no obligation to watch my show versus any other show out there.”

She cuts off her rambling. “You’re getting a lot of good press. It would have been hard to miss your show.”

“That’s actually the meeting I came from. The network green lighted a second season.”

“Oh.”

“Lena?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you hate me for it?”

“I always told you that you deserve to have your own life. I don’t have any say in the matters.”

“Are we having this conversation?”

“Look, Kara. You made a tv show about us. Of course I’m going to call you.”

The words get ahead of her. “Can I see you?”

She doesn’t get a verbal response. Lena struggles to swallow over the lump in her throat.

“I didn’t mean to be presumptuous. You must be extremely busy running your company.”

“How did you know that?”

“Lena you’re one of the most successful women in National City. You’ve done wonders with Lex’s company. I’m sorry by the way. The trial… What you did, you showed true strength.”

She needs Kara to stop talking. “Thank you for that, and about Lex.” She clears her throat. “I did what I thought was right. It was like that show you made me watch, Veronica Mars. What was it she said, the hero was the one who stayed?”

“You remembered?”

Lena wonders if they’re going in circles or if they’re actually going somewhere.

“We don’t even live in the same city.”

“Actually, production is right outside of National City.”

“You don’t live in Metropolis?”

Kara glosses over how Lena knew that. “No. Turns out the city wasn’t big enough for both Clark and I. I moved when I got a writing deal.”

“You live here?”

All this time Lena had been going about her life never thinking she would see Kara randomly whether that was the grocery store she went every Sunday or someone she could have passed on the sidewalk. There was supposed to be hundreds of miles between them.

“You’re not mad?”

Kara’s worried that Lena is going to suddenly hang up the phone and this will all have been a fever dream.

She wants to make it right. She has to hear it from her. It had been Lena who had done the leaving. She had decided for them both. Kara thought she wasn’t the person Lena needed her to be. That that was what sent her running. That was far from the truth. Lena thought she was doing the leaving for them both. There had never been a conversation.

Kara had wrote and wrote. But whatever the words were that she wrote none of them captured what she felt watching Lena leave. She could write a million stories but she never knew how her own life turned out.

“Noonans.”

“The one on 14th?”

“Yeah. Can you do tomorrow?”

Her answer is immediate. “Yes.”

“10?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I’ll see you then Kara.”

She hears her hang up as she says it. “Bye Lena.”

*****

The first time they met for coffee Kara didn’t know if it was a date or not. After they had texted back and forth she had opted not to ask. Instead she worried about it. She was wearing her favorite button down, tucked into her nice jeans with a black belt. She had gotten there twenty minutes before they said they would meet. She didn’t want to be late.

Lena came into the little coffee shop fifteen minutes later.

Once they sat down together. Kara didn’t have to remind herself to be a normal person. It was easy with Lena.

“So you’re telling me we’re the same age?”

Lena blushes. “I skipped a few grades along the way.”

Kara smiles. “Hey, we all made it here somehow.”

She looks up under her eye lashes. Kara seems sure. She seems steady.

“What about you? How did you get here?”

She watches Kara lean back in her seat. She takes a swig of her hot chocolate before starting. “My parents died when I was twelve. I’m an only child. The only family I had was my cousin who was nineteen at the time. He couldn’t take care of me. I spent some time in the system before the Danvers adopted me. By the time I was situated I had lost a year, their school district was one of the top in the state. So I was the new kid and was a year older than everyone else.”

Lena grabs for her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m adopted too. My mom died when I was four.”

She squeezes her hand, sharing eye contact.

Something passes between them. Their shared loss somehow building a bridge between them. They stand on it together.

Lena remembered thinking that this was too easy, whatever this was. Kara wasn’t like everyone else she had encountered in her life. She would have sat there with her for hours longer if the barista hadn’t told them that they were closing.

Kara had opened the door for Lena. They stood under a street light.

“I had a really great time.”

“So did I.”

“Do you want me to walk you home?” Kara is quick to clarify. “I mean, it’s dark out, would you feel more comfortable if I went with you?”

“I live two blocks away, I should be good.”

“Okay. Text me when you make it back, okay?”

“Will do.”

Kara holds her there just by looking at her.

There’s a flutter of movement as Kara pulls her in for a tight hug. She breathes her in. Then she’s walking back to her apartment.

She texts Kara as soon as she closes the door. She receives a smile in response. Lena’s the one to ask, “When can I see you again?”

She doesn’t get a chance to lock her phone before Kara’s response comes. “Tomorrow?”

She doesn’t think. “Tomorrow, it is then.”

It had been that easy. With Kara it had always been easy.

*****

Alex asked her through the door as she tried on a third outfit. “I don’t get why you’re doing this.”

She looks at herself in the mirror. “Alex we’ve been through this.”

Her sister stands. “That’s the one. I know, just, you know you don’t always have to think with your heart, right? You could use that brain of yours if you want.”

Kara turns to look at her. “I said yes.”

“Lena is always your yes.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Be careful okay, you already have a tv show you don’t need to mine for content.”

Kara pulls her in for a hug.

“I got to go.”

Alex leaves with her. She tells Kara that she loves her. Kara says it back. She looks over her shoulder to watch Alex walk down the other side of the street towards her parked motorcycle.

She didn’t expect Alex to get it when she didn’t understand it herself. This was some sort of second chance. Lena didn’t owe her anything. That was fact.

What they had was now.


	4. Chapter 4

For years Kara had resented the word home. It seemed to taunt her. She had learned to make peace with it. It was one of those compromises which helped her get out of bed in the morning. But each and every time the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes sang came on she hit skip immediately.

She had heard it all. Some people said home was a place others said a person, or a state of mind. The facts were different for each person. Because deep down Kara knew that she didn’t have a home to return to. Not in the traditional sense. That had burned down when she was twelve. Then the embers smoldered as Clark took her in. But it was not for long. It wasn’t Clark’s fault that he couldn’t take care of her. He was nineteen and had a life of his own. Kara had thought about that year in and year out. It hurt to see Clark happy and grown into his own life. She saw all the things that she wasn’t. Not enough for him to keep her. Not enough for her to stay. She found a voice for it later in the weekly therapy sessions the Danvers scheduled and brought her to. She learned to accept that she couldn’t control her what she felt, they were her feelings. Kara was a survivor. That’s what survivors did, they did whatever it took to get through to the next moment.

When the Danvers took her in she was a shell of her former self. They didn’t know who she was even six months prior. Kara was grateful for that. They never compared her to who she once was. She existed in the now for them. That didn’t minimize the problems that Kara had to face.

Survivors were good at surviving. That didn’t necessarily equate to living. Kara would catch the look on Eliza’s face when she was supposed to be a kid not an adult in a teenagers body. Kara couldn’t shake herself free of that. Some behaviors couldn’t be unlearned in a matter of months or years. It took a lifetime to unknot some trauma.

Kara had been surprised when she had given herself to Lena during their first coffee hang out. That detail, the one about her being an orphan and the Danvers taking her in was normally saved until she knew someone and could trust them with something so monumental about herself. But Lena she had told her within the first half hour of them sitting together. Lena had never flinched. It made Kara relax, it allowed her to take a breath and be present with her, in the moment.

It was the beginning in a lot of ways.

Kara had allowed Lena to see her. And Lena had not looked away. It wasn’t some sort of test Kara had concocted. It had all happened organically.

Kara remembered how Lena looked as they stood under the street light that night. Kara didn’t want to leave her and the suspended moment of being together.

It was nothing more than a friendship hangout. Kara had committed herself to that before she had set foot in the coffee shop. But standing under the light, shadows being cast here and there, Lena wasn’t just some person. Kara had given a piece of herself to her that night. Lena had kept it safe for her. Lena was beautiful. Anyone could see that. Not that Lena recognized that in herself.

Kara saw Lena. It was the second before she pulled her in for a hug that Kara thought that she wanted Lena to be a part of her life. She wanted Lena in whatever regards. She was more than just special, she was one of a kind. Kara didn’t want to let go, not that night nor ever. Lena Luthor was always someone Kara looked out for. What was it, the wounded see the wounded? It was that evening in which her feelings began to hatch. Kara was starting to learn what it was to love Lena.

*****

Kara made her way to Noonan’s. She wanted to tell herself that this could be trivial, it didn’t have to matter. That was a bold face lie. She felt like laughing at herself. There was no playing down how monumental this was.

It had been five years since the dissolution of them being a couple. Five years.

Kara wasn’t that same person that she was. How could she be? Change was the only guarantee in life.

There was the tv show. It had been a fragment. Kara had more stories to tell. But it was her own heart break that had been picked up for a pilot and then a batch of episodes to constitute a season.

Lena had read the first things that she had written and chosen to share. Each time Lena would read the looseleaf pages, she would give Kara a smile. Kara swore for the longest time it was the smile she reserved just for her. She gave her fair criticism, always steps to get better, nothing that tore her down. Lena believed in her when she didn’t.

Kara had grown as a writer and as a person. Lena was part of that. Lena was woven into Kara’s life. Kara felt it all no matter how hard she tried to shut it away.

She never gave Lena the title of being the one who got away. That made her skin crawl. Lena was a person. Kara was a person. Lena didn’t have any obligations to Kara. Neither did Kara to Lena.

But it was Lena who had called her. It had been Kara who had written the story. That very morning they were seeing each other. It would be the first time in five years, two months, and thirteen days.

It wasn’t a small thing. Kara’s heart reminded her of that. This wasn’t something to skirt to the side of. She had to steer into the proverbial storm. She wouldn’t forgive herself unless she saw it all the way through. This was the second chance she thought she would never get. This was it.

*****

A year into their friendship, Lena had helped Kara move her stuff from one apartment to another. Kara had been staring at her since they finished the pizza she had ordered.

Lena called her out on it, “Do I have something on my face?”

Kara is sheepish. “No.”

She wipes at her face with the paper towel they were using in place of napkins for good measure. She puts it down and looks at her friend. “What is it then?”

Kara squirms in her seat.

“Kara. You can tell me, if you want.”

She watches her.

Kara meets her eyes, it’s almost like there’s a plea there.

Lena says it gently. “I’m listening.”

Kara hears her say it. She feels how Lena looks at her, expecting and waiting for Kara to fill in the gaps.

The words taste sour. “I’m afraid.” Kara takes a breath. “I’m afraid of screwing this up.” She gestures between them before starting again. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Lena’s expression softens. Her words are just for Kara. “You’re not going to lose me.”

Kara pushes the hair out of her face. She looks at Lena. Lena had thrown her a lifeline. She struggled to wrap her head around Lena’s ability to reach her. “You don’t make me feel alone. With everyone else, other than Alex, I usually feel like I’m looking in from the outside. I don’t fit in their boxes. I don’t know where the lines are. But you, you came out of the blue.”

She doesn’t say anything. It’s like Kara can’t stop herself. “I never got it until we became friends.”

“Got what?”

She says it before she can stop herself. “What people meant when they said sometimes home wasn’t a place but a person.”

She wipes the tears away before they can fall.

Kara feels like the silence sitting between them is so god damn loud.

She notices how Lena’s cheeks are red. She wonders if she has scared her.

Kara picks at a loose string on the cuff of her sleeve. Her words break the silence. She’s timid. “I’m gay.”

“Okay.”

Her eyes jump to Lena’s.

“I can be surprised if you want me to be.”

She says it with more confidence. “I’m gay.”

“That’s not a problem.”

Lena’s calmness is the last thing that Kara expected. “I’ve never told anyone.”

Her words are sure. “I’m not running.”

She agrees. “You’re not.”

“Kara, you’re my friend.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“I mean, nothing has to change. I love you as my friend, as you are. You know, and you telling me doesn’t mean I no longer want to be your friend.” She means what she says. “I’m here as long as you’ll have me.”

“You’re being too cool.”

“I always assumed I was the weirdo in the equation.”

She lets out a puff of laughter.

Kara’s serious again. “You’re sure?”

Lena puts her hand up. “Scouts honor.”

Lena didn’t tell her that she was too. Or the fact that she had fallen head over heels for Kara. It’s not the time but she feels it all the same.

Lena hugs Kara in that room with boxes strewn about. Her arms are around her. Kara feels her there with her.

Lena loved her even if she didn’t know what that meant.

*****

Lena’s first to the coffee shop. She’s thankful for that. She orders a drink and finds a table. She waits and watches for Kara. She feels her heart thunder in her chest.

Kara walks in and she scans the room and finds Lena. She gives her a smile and wave.

Lena feels something fluttering in her stomach.

Kara sits down and she looks across the table at the woman she hasn’t seen in person in years.

They’re searching each other for answers to questions they haven’t asked.

They’re the same but different.

They start talking at the same time.

Kara tells Lena to go ahead.

She swallows her nerves. "How are you?”

Kara takes a sip of her drink buying herself a few more seconds. “I’m all right. Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”

Lena doesn’t know what it is which is between them. She had thought over the years that she never fully understood it. It was something that had grown and evolved. She didn’t think there was a way to steer it. Whatever their relationship was it was what it wanted to be. Control was something she never felt sure of when she was with Kara, not then and not now.

She could tell her that she was beautiful. That she aged with grace. Lena doesn’t though. She knows its not appropriate, not after everything. Kara was the person sitting across from her. She could have been a stranger, she was a stranger. Lena didn’t know her, not the person she was in the present. She had known a past version of her. Lena had loved her with everything that she had. It had still ended. Yet Kara was there, right there.

*****

Lena makes her way out of her office when she hears Jess squeal.

Her secretary is glowing with excitement. Lena catches her as she puts down the handwritten note and rolls out the _Even Now_ poster.

“Do you like it?”

She jumps in her seat and looks to her boss.

“Do I like it? I love it.” She’s in total fan girl bliss.“This is one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me.”

Lena smiles as she watches the other woman.

“Can you take a picture?”

“Of course.”

Lena snaps a few photos of Jess with the poster and the note Kara sent along. “Do you mind if I send this to her?”

Jess does a double take. “You know Kara Danvers? _The_ Kara Danvers?”

Lena tries to be nonchalant. “We go back. We had been out of touch until I watched her show.”

“You know her? Wait, did you get her to send me this?”

She shrugs.

“You’re the best, seriously. Oh my god I love you.” Jess blanches. “You can pretend I never said that.”

“Jess, it’s fine. I’m glad you like it. It’ll make Kara happy too.”

Jess nods once then twice. Her eyes trace back over the poster.

Lena sends Kara the pictures with a simple, _thank you for making her day_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter might be a bit meandering. But I swear it's for a purpose. There's more bits of Lena and Kara's conversation over coffee to come. Not to mention the rest of their relationship. So hold on there's more to come.  
> Thanks for going on this ride and reading. I hope it fulfills what you're looking for. These two mean a lot to me.


	5. Chapter 5

Lena has to read it again, “Of course I love you, it is my fault that you have not known it all the while." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

It was in Kara’s signature script. Lena didn’t understand how it was supposed to be for her. The words had come in a letter.

Kara must have put it in her mailbox that morning before she got in the car to drive back to Midvale.

Lena stares at the letter which sits on her table as she stands at her counter sipping a scalding hot cup of coffee.

Kara had been asking Lena why she turned down every man who looked at her with even an inkling of intention. Lena knew she was being well intentioned. Kara always wanted the best for her even if she didn’t want that for herself. That’s how Lena had come out to Kara.Then Kara was looking at her wide-eyed and full of wonder.

“Does that make sense now Kara?”

“Yeah. It does actually.”

When Lena got up she had found that Kara’s attention was still trained on her.

She had watched Kara say it before she heard it. “I’m glad that you felt like you could tell me.”

It stops her.

“Life’s hard enough as it is, you know?”

She nods.

She had taken a step back. She swallows over the sudden lump lodged in her throat. Kara had a way of getting through to her. Each and every god damn time. She wondered if she realized that or if she was even trying. A year and a half into knowing Kara, Lena knew that Kara was a rare type of authentic. She was fearful, sure. She was timid when she had Lena read something of hers. She was waiting in a sense. Kara didn’t tell Lena that she constantly thought that their friendship felt too good to be true. It was like how their hands fit together. How Lena could smile at Kara and her days suddenly got a little brighter. The way Kara felt about her was not a way she had felt about anyone else in her own life. She didn’t know what to do about it.

She had penned Lena the letter. She would be away for a few days. Kara wanted to give Lena the space to react and chose how to go from there.

She hadn’t thought much beyond that.Kara hated being dishonest. She knew what it meant when people said that life is short.

It had been brewing within her. She loved Lena. If she let her she’d give her everything that she had. Not that Lena would ask. But Kara would lay herself down for her without hesitation. It was something she knew and felt emphatically. This was one of those things that didn’t require thought.

By the time Kara had walked up the stairs in Lena’s apartment and inserted the letter she was sure. There was no turning back.

As Kara drove and mile upon mile separated them she didn’t regret the words. They were her truth. She had a half a dozen other emotions coursing through her. But regret wasn’t one of those.

Lena was her favorite person. Kara knew, when you love someone, you love all of them. And Kara loved Lena Luthor. It felt like the beginning and the end.

Lena wondered if there would ever be a time that she wouldn’t love Kara.

Kara got a call after Eliza had hugged her and she had brought her overnight duffle inside.

Eliza was good natured. “Lena?”

“Do you mind?”

“Of course not.”

Kara managed to pick up the call before it hit voicemail. “Hey.”

Lena breathed on the other side of the line. “Hey you.”

She can envision her in her apartment, sitting crosslegged on the couch with the red fuzzy blanket draped over her.

“I guess you got my letter.”

She hummed. “I did.”

Kara paced the length of the house. She pivoted to walk the same way she came.

It was when she had turned around to take the same steps for the second time Lena broke the silence. “Kara. Did you mean what you said?”

“I love you Lena.”

She’s said it.

She doesn’t see the tears in Lena’s eyes in a separate city. “I didn’t, I never knew you felt that way.”

The reasons spill forth. “I didn’t want to encroach or impose myself on you. I had had this thought in my head. How could someone as amazing, brilliant and beautiful like you feel that way about me? You’re my favorite person Lena. I wanted to be honest with you. I had to tell you. I needed you to know.”

“Kara, I was the one who gave you my number when we met.”

“I thought you were being friendly.”

Lena laughs and it breaks the tension before she goes back to being serious. It’s the question she has to hear the answer to. “You love me?”

“Lena, I don’t know how not to.”

Kara has the moment crystallized in her heart. “I love you too Kara Danvers. I have for a long time now.”

“You do?”

“Of course silly. How could I not be in love with you?”

“I’m me.”

“Yes, you’re you. You’re the kindest and gentlest person I know. You never complain about what you’ve been through. You’re strong but you don’t over shadow others. You make me happier than I thought I could feel. I love you. I never had to try, I just do.”

Lena remembers waiting for Kara to come back from Midvale. It had felt like her whole body was made up of nervous energy.

Kara had knocked on her door.

When Lena had opened the door to see Kara standing with her green duffle at her feet.

Neither of them move to say anything.

Kara is staring at her, taking Lena in. It’s like she’s drinking her in.

She takes a step and then another.

Kara’s hands are on either side of Lena’s face. She’s looking at the woman she loves.

This, this was the good that people had told her to look for when everything was dark and nothing was going right. She understood it now. How brilliant life could be.

They’re breathing each other’s air.

Kara kisses Lena’s forehead. “I love you.”

Her tenderness sweeps Lena off her feet.

They move inside Lena’s freshly cleaned apartment. Kara’s stomach growls.

“Let me make you something to eat. You must be hungry.”

It’s when Lena puts a plate of mac and cheese in front of Kara does she say it back to her. “I love you Kara.” She means it with all that she is. “I love you.”

*****

Lena stares at Kara Danvers. She sees the woman she fell in love with. It’s been years but it feels like it could have been that no time had passed between them. Kara didn’t look at her like she was the woman who broke her heart and walked away from their relationship. Kara looks at her and Lena finds hope in her eyes.

Lena’s mouth talks for her. “You look good.”

Kara blushes with the compliment. “Thank you. You do too.”

Lena feels it in her chest, she still loves this woman, Kara. She didn’t know what to do.

“You’ve done wonders with the company.”

“Thank you.”

“Seriously, the products that you have engineered and released. You’re saving millions of lives.”

She tries to sweep it aside. “Any one would have done the same in my position.”

“We both know that’s not true. Lena, what you’re doing is making a difference. You’re a force for good.”

Lena’s uncomfortable with her words. She doesn’t feel like she deserves them, especially not from her.

She finds herself with an empty cup. She puts it back on the table and crosses her legs.

They’re watching each other as if they’re both waiting for the other person to disappear.

“We can do this, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Kara fidgets. “We can be friends. We were always good at that.”

She tests the word. “Friends.” Lena wonders if that was ever what they were. She sees the woman who told her that she loved her every night before one of them fell asleep. Kara’s the one. She says it again. “Friends.”

Kara puts her hand out. Lena mimics her. They shake hands. Kara says it, “To friendship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are enjoying this story. I wanted to write something with soft love (especially at a time like this in quarantine). So I wrote this chapter. Hopefully, that's alright.  
> There's still more as the pieces fall together. There's the time they spent apart not to mention the lives that they live now.  
> Thanks again for reading. These two have a place in my heart. Maybe we all deserve a love story.


	6. Chapter 6

Most nights Kara fell asleep before Lena. Lena would make sure Kara’s phone was plugged in and charging for the next day. She would pull the blankets up and tuck her in.

There would come the time when she would put whatever book she was reading down on the bedside table.

Before she turned off the lamp, she would watch Kara. She checked to see if she was breathing. It wasn’t because she was afraid because Kara had consumed something. It was that Lena thought that she was the luckiest person to be with Kara Danvers. She thought that at some point her luck was going to run out. So she watched the blankets rise and fall with Kara’s breath. She was so in love with the woman next to her. She knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her. It scared her how she felt but she couldn’t change that. It was.

Every day with her felt like a gift. It wasn’t that it was always easy. It was always worth it though. Kara Danvers was always worth it.

Lena turned off the light and cuddled up to Kara. She felt her move closer to her. It made her smile.

She loved Kara with everything she was.

*****

“Can you go to this game night with me?”

Jack’s eyebrows disappear into his hair line.

“I’ll let you pick whatever wine you want from my collection.”

He smiles wolfishly. “I would have said yes before the offer of wine. I didn’t know you had friends.”

Lena sighs as she feels a blush grow from the back of her neck to her cheeks.

“It’s a long story.”

He leans against the lab table. “This goes back to the other night, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Do I get a name before we go in and trounce some poor suckers in Catan?”

She says her name.

“Kara?”

“Yes.”

“No last name?”

“Jack.”

He puts his hands up. “Fine. Fine. When and where?”

That’s how Lena finds herself at Kara’s apartment going up to the second floor with Jack at her side. She has wine in one hand her purse in the other. Jack is holding tulips still in their plastic from the store around the corner.

He lets her take the lead. They find her door, brass numbers are affixed signifying it as apartment 206. She forces herself to take a breath before she knocks twice.

Kara throws the door open. “Lena! Hi, I”m so glad you could make it.” It’s like she finally sees Jack. “Who is this? Come in come in.”

Lena can hear the commotion in the room over as they take off their coats and Kara offers them a drink.

They move towards the source of the noise. Lena scans the room. She sees Alex. Her hair is shorter now, shaved on one side and a deep auburn color. “Sam?”

Jack bumps into her. His jaw falls slack.

Sam looks between them. “Lena, Jack what are you guys doing here?”

Kara speaks up placing a fresh bowl of popcorn on the table. “I invited her.”

“You know each other?”

Lena feels like everyone is looking at her. “We were friends a long time ago and we saw each other the other day.”

Kara puts her arm around her. She can’t help but fall into the comfort. “The more the merrier. Lena always kicked ass at game night.”

Sam swallows what she was about to say when a man who introduced himself as James declared that they had to play trivial pursuit.

Sam found herself in the kitchen with Lena an hour later. “Alex is my girlfriend.”

Lena meets her eyes.

“We’ve been together for nearly two years now. She’s wonderful with Ruby.”

She keeps her response simple. “I’m not your boss here Sam. You don’t owe me anything. I just hope that she makes you happy.”

“She does.”

She sees relief wash over Sam.

“That’s what counts.”

This wasn’t work. She didn’t tell Sam that Alex Danvers was one hell of a person. It was a requirement in order to wear the Danvers name. She remembers that much even if she hadn’t seen her in over half a decade.

Lena refills Sam’s glass. “Alex is lucky too for the record.”

She claims responsibility for Jack who is two steps past tipsy by ten thirty.

Everyone moves to help Kara clean up.

A nerdy guy named Winn takes responsibility for getting the board games organized, and back on the proper shelf.

James takes out the recycling and trash.

Alex and Sam are loading the dish washer.

Kara stands to help Lena grab her and Jack’s jacket. “I’m glad you came.”

“Honestly, I am to. I was worried.”

“What were you worried about?”

Lena didn’t know what the right answer was or the answer that Kara wanted to hear. “I haven’t done something like this in a long time.”

“We do this almost every week. You’re free to come whenever. Same goes for Jack.”

Jack staggers as he gets to his feet. Lena calls a car from her phone.

“Kara, my dear, it’s been a pleasure.”

Kara giggles. She moves to give him a hug. She does the same to Lena when they’re in the hallway outside her apartment.

Jack says it when they’re in the car and they’re on their way to his apartment. “I can see why you like her.”

He dozes off before Lena formulates a response.

She gets him inside.

He plops down in his king size bed. Lena manages to get his shoes off. She puts a glass of water on his bedside table and grabs a blanket to cover him with.

“Good night Jack.”

His words float to her as she turns off the light. “Love you Lena.”

She says it back to him, not that he hears her. “Love you too Jack.”

Lena laid awake in her own bed staring up at the ceiling. It had been a good night. Except that didn’t cover it. She felt more full now than she had in years. Kara Danvers was back in her life. The different aspects of her life like Jack and even Sam were intersecting.

Lena didn’t hate it. She had thought it would hurt to see Kara again.

There was pain but there were a full spectrum of emotions which outweighed it. She could paint a picture with them all. There was the joy of seeing someone she had cared deeply for now being successful and following her dreams. There was the happiness of course correcting. It wasn’t the same jagged edges that their relationship was when Lena walked away for both of them. It had smoothed out. It was like a rock that could be skipped over a body of water. It required the right throw but it seemed all the more magical when it worked, and the rock bounced and skittered across an otherwise calm body of water. There were ripples. But it also seemed like a feat of nature.

Lena had thought that she knew Kara Danvers. She had occupied so much of her dreams and thoughts. She was a part of her life. There was no denying that.

But really the feeling that kept her awake was hope.

She felt it in her chest.

Lena rolled over and reached for her phone.

She had missed a message from Sam.

It was a picture of Kara and Lena. She thinks it must have been taken during a round of charades. Kara’s staring at Lena as she’s exclaiming something. There’s something in her eyes. She doubts that there’s a word that could capture it all. Kara’s looking at her as if Lena was the only person in the room.

She knows its late but she sends a message back to Sam thanking her for the photo.

Lena saves it to her phone.

She stares at it long enough so that when she closes her eyes she can still see it.

The problem was never Kara. Lena always started there. She wanted to be worthy of her love. That hope which was kindling in her heart kept her warm. She fell asleep telling herself that this time she could be the friend she thought Kara deserved.


	7. Chapter 7

Lena found Kara’s office. Getting the address was a series of clicks. Once she got into the building it was just a matter of being polite and smiling at each secretary and administrative assistant.

She had known Kara wouldn’t be occupied. She had asked about her upcoming schedule on Sunday during brunch. Kara had mentioned that with the finale airing that night she would have her normal dosing of meetings, and preparation to film the next batch of episodes. She had spoken about it nonchalantly as if it was just any other nine to five job. Lena had been around Kara for nearly a year now. She had heard Kara espouse about her gratefulness. She was always quick to say that she was fortunate to be in a place where these were her problems. She knew that people would switch for her life in a heartbeat. Problems were still problems though.

Kara looked up when Lena was standing in front of her desk.

“Oh, hi Lena, I wasn’t expecting you.”

She grits her teeth. “That episode, that’s not how I remember the conversation going.”

They had talked around the tv show but not about the tv show. Lena had thought that up to now there were simply somethings which hurt too much. She had chalked it up to being an unspoken compromise. That was until now.

Kara closes her laptop.

“Lena.”

She’s trying to keep her tone in check. “That wasn’t what happened.”

She takes Kara’s silence as an answer to go on. “I didn’t sabotage our relationship. I never meant to test you. Who I am, who I was, I loved you, okay?”

“Lena.”

She deflates and sinks into the white chair across from Kara.

Kara doesn’t know how to handle Lena’s emotions. The show needed conflict in order to be a well rounded story. That was the logical answer. That regardless of how Lena remembered a situation what she was seeing on screen was a tv show.

Kara picks her words carefully. “I didn’t know that’s how you felt.”

Tears prick at Lena’s eyes. She knows she’s being the emotional one. “You have to know I never meant to hurt you Kara.”

*****

It had been the first crack of the foundation. They had both thought they were being reasonable from their own sides of the equation. Neither saw it the way the other did.

Kara wanted to be there for Lena. She sought to understand why she put herself through the Luthor ringer time and time again. It hurt to watch her she couldn’t fathom how much it hurt to be her in those situations.

Lena thought that was what her name guaranteed her. She didn’t see a way out. There was no running from the Luthor’s. If there was she would have been long gone. In her mind she thought of it like a twisted prophecy. Good things never lasted for a Luthor. She couldn’t say that to Kara. She didn’t expect her to understand. She knew that Kara would not be able to. She thought they all had choices. That there were certain things in life that when asked a question, no could be answer to. Kara had not grown up in the same house that Lena did. Scars couldn’t heal if they were ripped open over and over again.

“I know you want to spend New Years together. But I told you I had to go to this party. There’s no place I’d rather be then with you.”

Kara was pouting. “Then come and stay in Midvale with me.”

“I made a commitment.”

Lena’s squelching her anger down. She doesn’t want it to come loose.

“I just don’t get it.”

“It’s not something you have to get. It’s something that I have to do.”

She sees Kara shrink back as if her words bit her.

She doesn’t want to fight about this. “Kara, I love you. You know that but there are somethings I have to do. This is one of those things.”

She watches Kara actively unturtle herself. Her shoulders come down. She takes a deep breath before speaking. “I want you to be able to chose yourself. You’ve told me what Lillian has said to you. It’s not like you should have to preform either.” She pushes back a loose strand of hair. “You’re not you when you’re around them.”

Her voice rings out. “What if that’s exactly who I am?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I have to be all of these people. It makes me so god damn tired. But that’s what they need of me so that’s who I am. Being a Luthor isn’t a choice. I am who I am.”

“They don’t treat you like family should.”

It cuts into her. She wonders how much farther it is until she hits self destruct. “And how is that Kara? How do I deserve to be treated?”

Kara gets up from the spot against the wall. She crouches in front of Lena. She grabs her hands. Her tenderness stings. “You deserved to be celebrated not guilted for who you are. You deserve to be seen for your good not your mistakes. And most of all you deserve love.”

Lena crumbles into herself. She feels like a black hole, collapsing into herself. She cried and she hated how much Kara cared. How Kara held her tight as it felt like her world came undone. That Kara loved her unconditionally. The person Kara had talked about that person in Lena’s life was her.

*****

She didn’t intend to say it aloud. “You went to that party.”

“Excuse me?”

They look at each other. It’s more than a desk that separates them. In the moment it felt like an entire world between them.

Kara idly plays with a paperclip in her hands. “Look Lena, it’s a tv show.”

Lena looks down and then back at Kara. It seems like she’s waiting for her.

“We both know it’s more than that.”

A woman in her thirties with a black dress clinging to her figure barges into the office. “Kara, oh, publicity needs to see you.”

Kara thanks her saying she’ll be there in a few minutes.

Lena’s still staring at Kara.

Kara gestures about. “All I am doing is telling a story. That’s what I’m good at. It’s us but it doesn’t have to be. It happened. But I’m here and so are you. You have a choice Lena, so do I.”

Lena clears her throat and grabs her purse.

Kara walks her out. She tells Lena she’ll call her at the end of the day.

Lena doesn’t say anything. She watches Kara’s retreating figure. In the back of her head she knows she has a million things to do. But she’s stuck with that same inky feeling that this was one of those conversations that she had messed up. That now there was some sort of before and after in play. There was the collected Lena who had her shit together. Then there was the Lena who was raw, the one who let Kara in. She didn’t know how to be both. She never did.

She thought that Kara saw her as more. More than just a person. Lena could never hold that title up. It had crushed her before. But then again, it was this time that Lena watched Kara walk away. She had not looked back. Kara had her own life. Lena did to. In the time since Lena first watched _Even Now_ to the last episode that had aired, Kara and her had become friends again. Lena had taken that step out of line from her quote unquote normal life.

Lena was a Luthor. She berates herself as she goes back to the office. It was more than a name. She had never been able to get Kara to understand that. The name gave her instant success, she had the inheritance people wrote fairy tales about. It was all right there. She had to fill in a cookie cutter to get it. So much of her had already been cut away. What was left was the person who went to Kara. The part which was letting them try again.

Lena answers the phone with a glass of wine in her other hand.

“Hey.”

She’s already two cups in. “I didn’t know if you would call.”

“I told you I would. I don’t break my promises.”

Her hand shakes as she puts the cup down.

“Can I come over?”

She knows it’s not smart but she says yes.

Thirty minutes later Lena is opening her door and shepherding Kara inside.

She starts to ask Kara what she wants to drink when Kara’s words stop her in her place. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you Lena. You have to know that, please.”

“Kara.”

That gnawing feeling surfaces, the one which made her weep. The one which evoked noises from her she didn’t think were possible to make.

“All I have ever wanted for you is good things. I like to think I was one of those good things for a period of time.”

“You were.”

“Lena, I make mistakes. We all do. None of us are perfect. It never made me love you any less.”

She finds her way to her couch. Kara follows her. She pulls her sleeves over her hands.

Lena doesn’t want to hear the answers to the questions that cloud her brain. She’s not ready for the rainstorm it will bring.

“Kara, I don’t know if I can have a rational conversation about this.”

She makes it sound easy. “So let’s not be rational.”

“I never understood how you did that.”

“Did what?”

“Make things simple when to me they are all tangled together.”

“Can I say that you’re too hard on yourself?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Lena knows Kara’s there, on her couch, in her apartment, in her life. She couldn’t explain it. She could list the situations, the experiences that brought them to that very moment. But none of it added up.

It was all to much. Not that it was too little to late. Kara had always brought herself, her full self. She had been honest and sincere. Lena felt like the fraud. She wondered if she had ensnared Kara without even realizing it.

“I’m just a person Kara.” She meant to say that she wasn’t enough. That she would never be good enough for her. Never enough of what Kara needed or deserved.

“That’s all any of us are.” Kara reaches out and leaves her hand on Lena’s knee. “I’m here for you Lena. I was back then. I am now too. All I’ve ever wanted for you was to be happy.”

“I’m successful.” The words sounds flat to her own ears.

“But are you happy?”

She feels Kara beside her.

“Lena you deserve good things.”

The first tear spills down Lena’s cheeks.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Kara had not gone anywhere the first time. Lena had been the one to do the walking. She was the one to leave.

Lena bursts into tears. She covers her face with her hands. She feels herself sobbing. Kara has her arms wrapped around her.

She understood what Kara meant. She was there and she’d be there for Lena.


	8. Chapter 8

She watched Kara’s acceptance speech.

Then she rewatched it three times. Her computer screen went dark. She was looking at a reflection of herself.

“There are some people who you will always pick up the phone for.” Kara swallowed hard. The lights were too bright. Fabric pinched at her hips. She had read and practiced the speech so many times that she thought she had it memorized. She stared out in the crowd and tried to find her people. Alex, James, Nia. She had to squint to see them. She summoned her strength in front of the ballroom full of people. There were the cameras but more importantly there were the people.

“I received a phone call that I knew would change my life. I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t about the show. Don’t get me wrong I’m more than thankful for _Even Now_. Every episode is an opportunity to tell a story. It’s truly a gift. I never thought I would get to this point or stand on this stage before you.

“Like I opened with, there are some people who when they call it doesn’t matter the time or place. All of a sudden the phone rings, and it’s them.

“There’s power in a story. That’s the power that I wield every day I work. My story took a turn with that phone call. It’s not that I knew. It’s that I had to pick up the phone. I had to know what it was that that person had to say. Because it was never nothing. For those rare people in our lives it’s something, always something.

“I’ve lost myself along the way. I think we all have at one time or another. Home isn’t a place but a feeling. I am honored to be nominated and chosen for this award. I dedicate this to the life altering moments that can never be predicted. Second chances are just that, second chances. I don’t plan on wasting even a second. Thank you.”

*****

It was in the time after Kara had graduated and Lena was working in a little lab an hour south of Metropolis.

They lived together not that both of their names were on the lease. Kara spent virtually every night there. Lena wouldn’t have it any other way. It all felt natural. She didn’t want to think too hard about it.

Lena managed to leave the lab before five on a Friday.

She picked up takeout and flowers.

The apartment was dark that’s what she noticed first once she unlocked the door.

She put her things down on the counter.

She didn’t bother with the lights. She wanted to find Kara. Something was altogether off.

The bedroom door had been left ajar.

Lena says her name as she gently opens the door.

Kara is sitting on the floor, her back to the bed. She has her knees drawn up to her chest.

Her heart breaks for her girlfriend.

She folds herself into the space next to her.

Her words are gentle. “Hey.”

Kara turns her head. Her eyes are glassy.

Lena is unsure if Kara knows where she is. She’s about to ask what happened when Kara’s voice comes through. It’s scratchy almost like it’s been out of use for too long. “It’s one of those days.”

A tear streaks down her cheek. There are more which follow.

“Okay.”

Lena opens her arms to her.

Kara falls into her.

They stay like that long enough for Lena’s butt to fall asleep. Lena doesn’t mention it. She holds her girlfriend. The one she would do virtually anything for.

Later when they reheat the takeout Lena brought home, Kara says it. Her eyes are red. She’s looking at Lena, unflinchingly. This, this was important to her. “You know I love you, right?”

Lena bumps shoulders with her. “Of course.”

Kara isn’t playing. She puts her fork down.

Lena had asked when Kara had calmed down if someone had died. The answer was no. But Kara’s losses were loud that day. She said it was like the volume was turned all the way up. That’s how she had explained it.

Lena didn’t push. She knew Kara well enough to know better than that. Kara operated on her own time. She stayed true to that unnameable voice inside her.

The tears are fresh. It’s not that they’re back at square one. Kara was working up the courage within herself to say it, whatever it was which was eating at her.

“I love you, like really love you Lena. Some days it scares me how I feel for you. You know when I wrote that letter it was never with the intention to hear you say it back. I wrote it and it was my truth.

“There are all these stories I tell myself. I wonder how I was this same person five years ago, ten years ago. I ask myself if my parents would be able to recognize me now. The person I want to be is a person to be proud of…

“I never thought I would get to be happy. I didn’t think it was possible that there was someone out there in the world for me. Someone who would hold my hand on the good and bad days. Not that they would understand but that they would care. It all probably sounds trite. I just feel so damn tired some days. There’s a lot of things I don’t understand. But I know that I love you. And you’re my person. I think I knew that when I wrote you that letter. I see it now, that’s all. You’re the one.”

Lena doesn’t say anything. She stays in the moment there with Kara. Because there is not something to say.

She loves this woman. She doesn’t have the words for it. She doubts she ever fully will. Not for what she has inside her. Nor for all the things she’d do for Kara.

Love was more than just a word.

It meant something. It had to.

It’s nearly a year to that night when Lena makes the decision thinking that she’s saving Kara. She acts on her own fears.

Kara doesn’t scream or call her names. Lena thought that it would have been easier if she did.

Kara stared at her. The agony clearly present in her expression.

It wasn’t that Lena didn’t love her anymore. She thought she loved her too much in order to stay. Lena didn’t think she could be that person for Kara, the one for. Kara was sunshine. Lena had thought and thought. She thought that by staying she’d only dim Kara.

It was never that it made sense. But Lena had made a decision. Then it became a series of decisions. Once she had started she couldn’t stop.

Kara’s last words were imprinted into her brain. “I will always love you.”

Lena had always hoped that that would be the promise Kara would break first. 

*****

Lena is the one to ask. “Kara, what are we doing?”

The warning bells ring out in Kara’s head.

“You saw my speech?”

“Of course I did.”

“Oh.” Kara scratches the back of her neck. “I,” She stops herself.

Lena wonders what lifeline Kara could possibly want her to throw her way.

She cuts to the chase. “You say things on purpose.”

Kara agrees. “I do.”

“You’re not wasting any second chances?”

“We’re here aren’t we?”

The answer was yes.

That wasn’t the right question though.

“You’d pick up the phone?”

“Of course.”

“You sound sure.”

It’s like Kara has found her footing. “I am. If you called I’d answer.”

“You shouldn’t. Not after everything I did.”

Kara’s adamant. “But I would.”

Her love for Lena was stubborn. Lena wishes it wasn’t so straight forward.

Kara knew how she felt. She had gotten there first all those years again. It seemed like she made it there again before Lena.

Kara could hold her hand open. She could wait for Lena. Some part of her had always been waiting for her. Like she had expressed previously, there were always some people a person was going to love. Lena was that person for Kara.

“What if I’m not the person you think I am?”

Kara tilts her head.

The words escape. “Kara what if I’m not worthy of your love? What if one day I’m not the person you need me to be? What happens when you see the same person I do? How could you love me then?”

Kara uses the back of her hand to brush her tears away.

Her words are barely above a whisper. “If only you saw the person I do when I look at you.”

“I don’t know how to be strong.”

“None of us do.”

“Kara you deserve someone who is brave.”

“It’s you.”

“I walked away.”

“You came back.”

“Is that the story?”

Kara takes an extra breath. “I will always love you Lena. I promise.”

“I love you.”

She nods. “I know.”

Lena’s knee bounces up and down. “What are we doing?”

“We’re doing our thing.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“Lena you’re in my life. I’m never going to be mad about that. Whoever we are to each other. If you’re here that’s all I could ever ask for.”

“I want to be enough for you.”

Kara has Lena’s face in her hands. There’s no room to look away. “The thing is you always have been.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling a lot of things. I know it's been a little longer than usual between updates. I've been trying to get my thoughts in order to write and do this story justice. I'm not 100% sure. But I think perhaps each of us have the people who if the phone rang we'd always pick up. I know who they are for me. I want to get to the point where they no longer haunt me.  
> Second chances in life are a rare thing. Maybe we all deserve a happy ending.  
> That's where these words emerge from.


	9. Chapter 9

Because there are some types of broken that can’t be fixed.

Lena uses the key to get into Kara’s place. After Kara had insisted on her keeping it she tried not to think twice about it.

Kara looks up from the table and gets to her feet.

“Lena?”

She looks at the woman who she would always be able to see.

“I thought we agreed to breakfast this morning?”

Kara sweeps her into a hug. She holds Lena tight.

The question crosses Lena’s mind, when did Kara plan on letting go.

Kara breaths her in. She holds the other woman to her. She doesn’t want to let go. Not yet. Not after the nightmare she woke from.

“Kara?”

The puff of hot breath hits her neck.

It’s time, not that it will ever really be time to let go. Not when it came to having someone you cared about in your arms.

“I thought, I-“

Lena tries to see what’s going on. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not really. I woke up and, I well, I didn’t think I’d see you.”

She’s serious. “Kara, what’s going on?”

She takes a breath to steady herself.

Lena’s still there with her.

Her voice cracks. “I didn’t know if I’d see you again.”

“Come here.” Lena’s the one to hug Kara, “Come here.”

It feels foreign yet familiar at the same time.

She asks when she’s no longer holding Kara up right. They’re both seated with a cup of coffee in front of them. “What made you think that?”

Kara hangs her head. “I just. I had this dream. I lost everything. I was there standing in the driveway of the house I grew up in and there was this firefighter next to me. He had draped something over my shoulders. I guess it was raining. Not hard, just like a drizzle maybe. He was trying to guide me. I kept asking him where everyone was. He just kept shaking his head. Nothing had made it out alive. Nothing.

“I was all alone again.”

“Kara.”

She keeps going. “In the dream I called Alex but the number was disconnected. And nothing was right and all I was was some kid in the back of an ambulance, alone. All I was was alone. I didn’t have anyone. Not a soul.”

She wants to know if she’s had this dream before. If this is something reoccurring or something her subconscious had dredged up out of the blue.

She doesn’t want Kara to be alone.

“I’m right here Kara. I’m not going to go anywhere.”

She’s small, “Thank you.”

It’s not something Kara needs to thank her for. Lena wants to be there for her. That had never stopped.

Kara doesn’t call the next day. Lena finds herself staring at her phone willing it to light up with Kara’s name.

It doesn’t happen.

It’s three days later when Lena hears a knock at her door.

It’s Kara that she finds.

She blushes when Lena ushers her inside. It’s oddly formal between them almost like they were strangers.

It feels wrong. Lena wants to fix it not that she knows how.

“So.”

“Yeah.”

Kara lets out a shakey laugh.

What was the right thing?

Kara starts then stops herself.

“I made this weird.”

Lena cuts her a break. “You didn’t.”

She insists. “I did though. I just fucked up whatever it was between us. I had that nightmare that threw me back to square one. And then you were there. And I didn’t know what to believe. I felt you but it wasn’t like in the very moment I believed it was you.

“It probably sounds dumb, it’s just that in the years we weren’t friends or whatever, I sometimes didn’t know what was real or not. I had all these feelings within me an I didn’t feel like they were valid. I just, I was this mess. It was like a storm I couldn’t quell. It’s what made me write. I had all this stuff in my head and if I could get it on paper, maybe then I could make sense of it.

“That nightmare. I woke up and I didn’t feel like I was actually awake. I felt fuzzy like I could fall back into that dream at any moment. You came and you were there not that you even knew. I just, I have lost so much. I don’t know who I am without that.”

Lena waits to make sure Kara has finished what she wants to say.

The words weigh on her.

Lena starts, “Thank you for telling me Kara.” She receives a nod from Kara. “I don’t always know what you need or want. But if I can be that for you I want to be.”

Kara doesn’t say anything. Lena feels like she’s getting it wrong. She tries again. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

She’s breathless. “But you did.”

She’s hesitant to agree. She sides with the truth. “Idid. And I’m sorry for the pain I caused.”

“You had never said it.”

“I didn’t?”

Kara’s eyes are glassy. It’s like she cuts herself open. “Please don’t walk out of my life again.”

It’s palpable. It’s one of the moments which count. It’s louder than the rest. It’s when the world fades away. She inherently knows that this means more than just a fleeting comment. Here lay the heart of it.

Kara speaks up. “I’m not as strong as I look.” 

She doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be a joke or not.

Lena feels her heart climb into her throat. “Would you believe me if I said I’m not the same person I was?”

Kara stares at her.

How could she explain it? “Who I was then, I was scared. I was running from it. I thought that if I left I was leaving it all to you. That it made you the victor in the situation.”

“Lena all I ever wanted was for you to be in my life.”

“I get that now. I didn’t back then. I was a lot of things. I didn’t give you that choice and that was unfair to us both. Some things scare me. And I ran.

“I did that. I have to accept whatever that means, consequences and all.”

Kara swallows hard. It’s a conversation she never thought they’d have. They had made it this far. But that didn’t guarantee anything in life. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“The other morning?”

“No. When you left and you never answered my calls. Then you left the city and the entire life that we built. I never got anything. I loved you, that didn’t stop. But you had evaporated out of my life.”

“Kara.”

“It hurt Lena. You did that. You walked away and you kept walking. You came back but every day I’m scared that it’s going to happen all over again.”

The words are lame. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“I do, okay. You are someone to me. You were everything. And you left. If I wasn’t enough back then how could I believe that I’m enough now?”

“Do you really feel that way?”

Her voice grew in decibels. “Of course I do! That person looking back at me in the mirror is the same one who was left.

“I had that freaking dream. I never thought I’d see you again. And yet there you were.

“And you know what?” She’s slinging her words. “You were there for me. I hate how you were there for me. You took care of me and I can’t hate you. I can’t.”

Lena felt like the wrecking ball she feared being.

“I’m not going to leave.”

Lena’s eyes find hers. Green meets blue. “I know that nothing I can say will prove that. But I will try for as long as you will let me. I promise.”

Kara thinks she should be more reluctant.

“I promise Kara.”

She asks the question she had been asking herself since she had since Lena came back into her life. “Can this time be different?”

It’s painfully honest.

The answer needs to be yes. It’s the only answer really.

Kara wonders if this is the end of the line.

Lena reaches for her hand. “I messed up, back then. I can’t fix that. You, Kara Danvers, you have always made me want to try.

“I remember you promised me that you’d always love me. I can’t forget that. You never broke your promises. I love you. The promise I make to you is that I’m here. I’ll always be here. I’m not going anywhere. I meant it when I said it to you the other morning. This isn’t something I’m saying just to say it.”

“Do you mean it?”

She would have to show her, over and over again. Day in and day out. Lena set herself on this path.

“I do Kara. You never deserved that. But right now, in this moment, you and I. You made it true. I always loved you. I was wrong in the past. That’s not something I ever want to do again.”

To her own ears she sounds like a child. “You’re not going to leave?”

She says it back so Kara can hear her. “I’m not going to leave.” She would say it every day for the rest of her life if that’s what it took. “I’m here for you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my greatest fears is that some day someone I love is going to see me as I see myself in the mirror. The version of myself where I don't know how to meet my own eyes. At the same time, I want the people who I love to tell me who they see when they look at me. Maybe then I could make sense or I could reconcile all the versions of myself.  
> I hope that this chapter makes sense and doesn't stray away from the story and the characters thus far. I think that vulnerability is beautiful. Being weak around another person is a strength in of itself. It's impossible to be strong all of the time. That's where this chapter stems from.


	10. Chapter 10

When Lena had walked out of the life she had built with Kara, it had left Kara feeling dangerously empty. It was the type of hole that was more like a void or a black hole.

Kara was left having to relearn how to be a person. She had found part of herself in Lena. But that had not stopped Lena from leaving. There were so few things that could have possibly stopped Lena. It was something that was going to happen. Lena had to leave in order to come back.

*****

Lena mentioned that she was going to have to take a work trip to Metropolis.

Kara says it without being prompted. “I lasted less than six months in Metropolis.”

Lena looks up at Kara. “What do you mean?”

“Clark and I butted heads.” Kara rubs the back of her neck. “I wasn’t who he expected me to be.”

She doesn’t know about that part of Kara’s life. She doesn’t pretend to either.

“I was going through it. It was right after everything just stopped with us, I mean. I don’t even know what I was looking for there.

“Alex never threw it back in my face, thankfully. She asked me what I was looking for. I didn’t have the words to answer her.

“It wasn’t that Clark kicked me out or told me to leave. He and I are different people. He has his whole life there. I may be a part of it but not in the every day sense. He didn’t know how to help. I don’t blame him because I didn’t know how to help myself either.”

There is pain there, a wealth of it really. Kara isn’t rubbing it in. She’s telling Lena so that she can understand. Those months, existing in the after, they weren’t lost. But they certainly weren’t clear. Kara had had to walk through it. One foot in front of the other. There had been no other way.

“He hadn’t known about us, not exactly. He knew I was seeing someone but I just, he’s with Lois. I could say it’s a boundary that was drawn for the both of us. But that much thought was never put into it. Clark is who he is like I am who I am. I don’t fault him.

Her voice wavers. “He couldn’t fix me just like he couldn’t take me in all those years ago.” She takes a breath and clears her throat. “I wasn’t where I needed to be. Metropolis wasn’t it for me.”

“I didn’t know.”

The words feel lame to Lena. She doesn’t know what the right words are.

“There’s no way you could have. It’s not like I just say that to anyone. It’s not pretty and it has sharp edges. God knows I’ve cut myself over it. I have had to walk through it over and over again. That’s not me anymore. I didn’t leave that version of myself behind there. It took a lot longer to shed it. But it still happened to me, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Stuff happens. That’s life.”

Lena wants to kiss her scars.

Kara switches gears. “It was years between what happened and us reconnecting.”

She doesn’t see the question ahead of time.

“There had to have been things that happened in your life.”

Lena feels sheepish. “I worked, a lot.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I thought I could prove myself from my work.”

Kara doesn’t push.

“I did and I didn’t. I had success but that could only get me so far. There was always some other mountain to climb.”

“And outside of work?”

“Outside of work what?”

Kara’s unperturbed. “I know you couldn’t have spent every day working, even if you wanted to.”

Lena feels herself blushing.

“It’s okay.”

She hears herself say it. “I know.”

“It was a long time. Like I said stuff happens.”

The words fall out. “He wasn’t you.”

Kara freezes where she is.

It’s not the answer either of them expected.

Kara tries to be a friend about it. “Was he, did you…”

“He’s a good guy. But he’s not you.”

“Did he love you?”

She can’t chalk up her question to being just a friend. She wanted to know.

Lena’s honest. “Yes. You’ve met him.”

“Jack?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you.”

Lena can’t get herself to ask if Kara had someone in her life between when everything happened to when there lives came back together. She doesn’t think she’s strong enough to know about someone occupying that space in her life. Kara had ever right. But Lena wasn’t prepared to hear it.

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“He means well.”

“You deserve a person like that.”

“Kara.”

“What?”

“You don't have to say that.”

“I mean it.”

Lena repeats herself. “We don’t have to do this. That was in the past.”

“It matters to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re someone I love Lena. I’m always going to care. If you loved someone else, and they took care of you, that’s all I could ever ask for. I’m happy you had someone there for you. You know that right?”

She did now.

Kara keeps going. “Years or whatever else it is is between us. All I could ever want is for you to be happy. If someone else does that for you, I support you.”

Lena feels like her heart is swelling within her chest.

“That’s what loving someone means.”

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t trust her voice. Lena wants to sit there with Kara and feel her presence. The person she was, Lena wanted to be someone who was worthy of Kara. Back then and now. Kara saw her and she saw the best of her. Lena didn’t always recognize that version of herself. But Kara had a way of elevating her. She always had. This woman possessed that skill.

Lena was happy with Kara. Her being in her life was always going to be enough. She felt it. She didn’t say it but she knew it.

Kara was that person.


	11. Chapter 11

Lena had waited days then weeks for the other shoe to drop. If there was one thing she was convinced of it was that nothing good lasted. It was an impossibility.

She had promised herself that. She never afforded herself the chance to be happy.

That was until Kara. She could never understand how Kara got her to learn more about herself. She was a person. But that never stopped her. Flaws and all. There wasn’t some hard stop or a rogue self destruct button in sight.

Wherever it was that she reached out to Kara was there. She didn’t know who was revolving around whom. They were together.

To Lena it wasn’t sustainable. There was going to have to be an end. There was always that point in the story and the movie. It happened. She was trying to figure out what that meant for her own life. Except now she had seen it, what those stories were trying to show in the first place. That there was good out there. That it was possible to find yourself in another person. Life wasn’t just twenty-four hours over and over again. Life could be shared. It could be the good and the bad. But those moments of happiness, which may be rare and in between, they flooded the rest of life with light.

Lena didn’t know. She never put two and two together that she didn’t have to.

*****

“Because I love you! That’s why.” Lena feels like clawing at her own skin.

The words are out there.

Kara’s looking at her. She can’t get herself to meet her eyes. She doesn’t want to move on to whatever comes next. She never has. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had never meant to say it. Those words, they were her own, she had kept them inside, effectively rapping them.

This wasn’t the person she knew how to be.

Kara’s voice is soft. “I didn’t know.” She pauses. “I didn’t know that’s why you left.”

There are tears blurring Lena’s vision. The whole thing feels like a god damn mess. She tells herself she should have known better.

She hears her as she squeezes her eyes shut. “You could have told me.”

She feels small. “What was I supposed to say? That me, Lena Luthor is driven by fear? The thing that my family drilled into me over and over again was that one day I was going to do big things. It was never some sort of choice. It was just expected that I’d wake up one day and I’d have my shit together and I’d be this wildly successful person. That was supposed to be it.

“I was so fucking fearful of not being who they wanted to be. Not that it even mattered. The one thing, the one person I wanted the most was you. There was this day I looked at you and do you want to know what I thought to myself?

“I looked at you while you were writing something. You were in a trance so focused on what you were doing. And I knew I loved you. I loved how you chewed your lip when you were thinking hard. How you hold a pen and press it to the page committing to it. No matter how many times you put your hair up there are always fly aways and they are too fucking cute. I saw you and I thought that if I were supposed to be that person that I’d break you. That’s what Luthor’s do. They don’t leave survivors. They scorch and burn.

“It was never that I didn’t love you. I loved you too much. I would have given you everything down to my last breath. I couldn’t be that person. I was so afraid to be the one to take your sunshine away. Because I saw that something within you. I loved you so fucking much. And that was never going to go anywhere. But I was going to have to. There wasn’t some sort of plan where things were going to work out. How was I supposed to live with myself knowing I was going to hurt the one person I loved the most?”

Kara hasn’t run away. She didn’t flee the scene.

Lena’s eyes find hers. Then she speaks looking at a spot a few inches above Kara’s left shoulder. “I didn’t know how to be that person. I loved you more than I knew I could. All along I was afraid of being the villain. I have all this love for you. I loved you more than I loved myself.”

She hears Kara hiccup as she tries to stop herself from crying.

Whatever it is between them, Lena thinks its anything but pretty.

“I wanted more for you than I wanted for myself.”

Kara doesn’t make a word.

“All I thought was that I was going to break us.”

*****

Kara didn’t always know how to be a full person. She didn’t know what the right thing was to say. She was had been surprised with their relationship ever since she got back from Midvale.

It had been three months now.

Three months of forwards but some days a few steps back.

Lena was the person she saw. She was the one who she yearned for.

It’s not that she knew. It’s that she wanted to try.

She wondered if the accurate word was clumsy when it came to her actions. Kara had read story after story. She had tried to find the answers in the words.

None of the stories she consumed captured her own story, the one which she lived. The answers weren’t there.

They were laying in Lena’s bed in her apartment. It was just them.

Lena’s fingers were in Kara’s hair, gently combing occasionally scratching at her scalp.

“I don’t know how to do this, to be intimate.”

Lena doesn’t stir.

Kara’s not ready to shift and look at her girlfriend. They’re close but there’s the line which Kara is edging towards. She can’t seem to get herself over it. Not yet. Not entirely.

“We don’t have to.”

“I want to, this, us, I mean.” She’s sure.

“Okay.”

Kara bites her lip before she says. “I want to be here with you. I don’t always know who I am. But I want to be with you.” She cops out. “I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

Lena’s words find her. “It does. Kara?”

She sits up and Lena mirror her.

“I don’t always have the answer.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t. It’s not just you.”

“I think-no, I know I don’t want to mess this up, what’s between us.”

Lena agrees.

They’re two twenty-something year olds trying to figure it out. What they’re sure of is there feelings for each other.

Kara lets herself fall into Lena’s touch. It’s not that she’s necessary graceful. Kara cares and feels with all of her being. When Kara gives, she gives herself.

Kara doesn’t know what it is that makes people stay. She doesn’t know how four letters spell home but home is a feeling not a place. 

Lena’s underneath her, she has her face framed in her hands. Something clicks in her mind and it’s like she’s more sure of this than anything else in her life. She, Kara Danvers, loves Lena Luthor.

She kisses Lena. It’s not that it’s like every kiss that had come before then. This time Kara lets herself feel. She lets it all wash over her and she pours it into Lena. She gives her all that she can and all that she is.

Kara and Lena are there together. Lena takes and she gives. It’s not just Kara.

It takes two. Lena loved her. She could feel it there in that moment shared between them. It was anything but small. It was like the whole world condensed into that situation. Two broken souls finding each other within each other.


	12. Chapter 12

She engages with Jess over the show. Except this time Lena makes a remark and she watches her secretaries jaw drop.

She notices her mistake right away. “Jess don’t,”

“It’s you! It’s you and Kara Danvers.” Her voice is too loud for Lena. “How could I not have seen it from the beginning! Of course you got her to send me that stuff. I was too freaking blind. You let me go on and on… It’s you two!”

Sam comes in for their scheduled meeting.

Jess swivels giving Sam her full attention, “Did you know that it was Lena and Kara this whole time on _Even Now_?”

Sam looks between Jess and Lena. Lena sees her weigh her answer.

Lena doesn’t know how the whole situation has spun out from her control.

“Not the whole time.”

Lena thinks Jess is practically yelling as she leaves her office, “I don’t know how I was so blind that I didn’t see it. Of course. Of fucking course.”

Sam raises her eyebrows at Lena.

She waves her hand. “I didn’t intend for that.” She clears her throat. “I let a detail slip and Jess clung to it as if it was gold.”

“She’s devoted.”

“She sure is.”

Lena pushes the papers about on her desk. She clicks her pen. “You knew?”

“Only after that first game night.”

She nods.

“I didn’t tell anyone if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Thank you.”

“Your welcome. But now that I can say it you guys are cute.”

Lena smiles. “Not as cute as Alex is with Ruby though.”

“Fair. My daughter is pretty cute, add Alex to the picture, my family leveled up.”

They get to work a minute later. Lena is grateful all the same.

*****

It wasn’t just that she wanted to be better for her. “Can I tell you that it matters? That you matter to me?”

Lena puts down the journal she was reading from. It’s not what she expected. She wonders if she could have prepared for this.

It’s approaching their anniversary. Lena reminds herself of this. But she’s not ready when she meets Kara’s eyes.

It’s that feeling again within Kara. She doesn’t have the words, the ones which fit. She has all of this bubbling within her. It’s not that it’s bad. She can’t seem to make anything fit. Each time she tries she feels like she only messes up further. But it somehow feels worse keeping it trapped inside.

After everything. Lena was still amazed every morning she woke up and Kara was there beside her.

Warning bells are ringing in her head. Kara looks so damn earnest.

She says it again.

Kara searches Lena’s face for the answer.

She says it because she needs to hear it just as much as Kara does. “I love you.”

It’s not enough somehow. Lena knows that. But she had to say it. How else was she supposed to communicate just how much she felt for Kara. Of course it mattered. It had always mattered. She didn’t see a day when it didn’t.

*****

“I had to relearn that. That just because I was saying that I was fine didn’t make me fine.”

She’s all too familiar with that.

“I was lost. I think that’s what made me such a good assistant. At least for a little while. I didn’t recognize my life. So someone telling me what to do or my life revolving around someone else who seemed to have their life together was easier somehow. I doubt that makes sense.”

She tells her. “I get it.”

Kara’s cheeks are red. She wonders if it will always be this hard.

“I got lost in my work. I think I would have drowned there if it weren’t for people like Jack.”

“Lena.”

She’s not ready to look at her. “All I wanted to be was what people wanted me to be. But that didn’t work. It never did. All it left me was empty.”

She hasn’t said the words before. Not in that order or in that way. It had come to light before how Lena didn’t know how to keep the fire burning within herself. She needed help in order to keep the darkness at bay.

Kara’s voice reaches her. “People need each other.” She clear her throat. “I could have been Cat Grant’s assistant forever. She saw something I was working on once. Then she demanded to see what other things I had written. She told me that she couldn’t accept me being her assistant if I had such capacity to reach others with my words.”

Lena can see the scene play out in her head.

“Cat gave me a timetable. Then she made sure it happened. I have her to thank for a lot of things.”

“Kara you got yourself here. You are the ones who writes the stories.”

“I know, I know. Cat was a mentor to me. I don’t want to sell her short on what she did for me and my life. I wasn’t fine when I started working for her. Not by a long shot. I practically had to relearn what it meant to be a human, for the second time in my life. Frankly, there were days when it was just hard to get out of bed… Cat saw greatness in people and then she demanded that of them. She saw something in me and she pulled it out of me so that I could see it too.”

“I’m glad you had her.”

“I am too. I’m glad you had people too.”

It wasn’t quite that, or it wasn’t just that. There was more to it. They both knew that that was the writing in between the lines. Greatness wasn’t just something that happened. It was something that was built upon. Things didn’t happen over night especially when it came to real life.

There was purpose, there had to be.

Her words grab her. She reaches out for her. She finds her hand. “It’s okay if you’re not fine. You don’t have to be perfect when you’re with me.”

It’s a gift.

Lean blinks past the tears. Kara Danvers had a knack of getting to her heart. There were no walls she seemed unable to scale.

Lena had never asked. She knows she would never be able to handle a situation where her vulnerability was shut down or even worse shunned. She had been so careful about showing herself to those around her. It made it so that the few times she did give herself to another it was a part of herself she couldn’t get back. She wasn’t the same person each time she opened herself up. No matter how she tried to stitch herself back up she felt broken and unworthy of love. The person that she was, Kara had seen her all along like stained glass. Broken was never the word she would use to describe Lena. Beautiful always came first.

Kara was adamant, experiences made a person who they were. She had said it enough that Lena had begun to believe it. Lena’s experiences weren’t easy. She had always felt that she had to run and that she could never look back. She operated in absolutes.

It was the grays really. There were no absolute rights when it came to matters of the heart. Perfection was an impossibility.

The words slip out of her. “I love you.”

Kara’s eyes open wide.

Lena doesn’t back down. She’s tired of taking the easy way out. Kara wasn’t someone to turn her back on. Not years ago and certainly not now.

“I didn’t say it to hear it. I just wanted you to know.”

Kara’s voice is timid. “I wrote that in my letter to you…”

She’s sure for what feels like the first time in her life. “I know. You meant it. And I mean it now. Like you said, I wouldn’t say it unless I meant it. And I mean it. I love you.”

She gives her this. Kara nods as the thoughts crash about in her head. Lena puts an arm around her shoulder. She gives her an out and draws some sort of end for them both. “It’s okay, we’re okay.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for depression and complicated relationships with parents.

Lena remembers the nervousness that reverberated through her entire body as she went with Kara to spend a weekend in Middle and meet Eliza. She didn’t think that she was parent material. She didn’t even think of herself as person material.

Kara had insisted and then reassured her over and over again.

It was the first time Lena had been invited to meet someones parent in this type of context. She was used to the formality of meeting someone, a strong handshake, good eye contact. There were rule books about it. Lena had even gone to courses for it when she was younger.

This, this was something she couldn’t plan for. Eliza was Kara’s adoptive mother. Kara loved her so much. She was her family. Lena loved Kara, that wasn’t a question. She wanted to be enough for her.

This meant driving the three hours to Midvale making sure the flowers, wine and jams were safe the entire trip. She didn’t want to mess this up.

Kara put her hand on her knee as it bounced up and down in the passenger seat.

“You’ll be great. Eliza will love you.”

Lena bit her lip.

“I love you and I love Eliza. Which by the transitive property means she will love you too.”

“Is that even a thing?”

Kara laughs. “It is now.”

She looks at her girlfriend and she can’t help but smile. This beautiful woman wanted her in her life. It was the stuff of dreams really. She could do this. She would do this. Kara would be there, it would be okay. She says it to herself like a mantra, over and over again.

Eliza welcomes her with open arms and a hug.

It’s not what Lena’s used to but it makes her feel warm.

That night after Eliza goes to bed, Lena is cuddled into Kara’s side on the couch. It could be anywhere, except there are family photos of Alex and a teenage Kara adorning the walls.

Lena says it quietly. “She’s wonderful.”

Kara glances down at her. “She has a way with people. She was so patient with me when they brought me in. It wasn’t that she or Jeremiah had to, but they did.”

“They’re good people.”

Good people didn’t cover it completely. But it was a start.

Kara stops and starts.

“I wish you could have met my parents.”

Lena looks at her girlfriend whose eyes are staring ahead at the muted tv playing reruns.

“If they raised you they must have been wonderful.”

Kara’s shoulders go up and down.

It’s not something they’ve talked about. Kara has mentioned them in passing but its never been a conversation in of itself.

“I wrote about them in my college application essay.” She’s not ready to meet Lena’s eyes. It’s not that she’s afraid of being judged. There will be kindness waiting for her. She’s sure of that. “I started looking into who they were. They were more than just my parents after all. My mom was a judge. My dad was a scientist.” She takes a measured breath. “Not everything they did was good though.

“My mom put people in jail. I mean it was part of the job. But the more I looked into it the more I realized she was biased. Her track record wasn’t perfect. She was harder on certain people. I mean she was disproportionally harder on people who weren’t white. My dad was doing contract work for the military. Some of his work killed people.

“I don’t get to have a conversation with them. I don’t have any memories of my mom being racist. My dad was never violent. He was so loving and always welcomed me into his workshop. I have to reconcile the people I thought they were with who they actually were.”

She bites her lip. “I try to think that they thought they were doing the right thing. But I don’t know if that was the case.”

“They’re your parents.”

Kara’s throat bobs up and down. “I try to remember the good.”

“It’s okay to be conflicted.”

She says it again. “They’re my parents.”

“I’m glad you told me and I’m glad you brought me here.”

Kara summons the courage to meet her girlfriends eyes. She was waiting for her. She loves her whomever her parents were or were not. Kara was Kara. That had always been enough.

“I love you.”

She parrots it back to her.

Lena doesn’t shy away. “I mean it when I say it. I don’t always know the right thing to say but I love you more than I thought I could love another person.”

Kara leans down meeting Lena’s face. They share a same breath.

It’s perfectly them.

She whispers the words into her skin. “I’m so in love with you Lena.” 

*****

“Because what’s left is what doesn’t fall away.”

She’s met with a quizzical expression. Lena can tell that she’s not following.

Her attention is rapt.

She hadn’t intended to make this some sort of thing. It was a statement that she had thought about and it had seemed to stick around.

“Like a person could work themselves to death. It’s not even that they’re aware of it. I mean I certainly wasn’t for the longest time. But there are some things which stay no matter how hard you try to bury them.”

Kara still hasn’t said anything. Lena’s not sure what she’s waiting for. But her words go on. “I guess some people drink it away. Or others starve themselves. It’s this thing of waiting to see what’s left when everything else is gone. Because no matter how empty I feel there’s something there, this body is a vessel. Even when I think I’m empty there are things which stay no matter what.”

She’s met with tears in Kara’s eyes.

“I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“Lena.”

The tears slip down Kara’s cheeks she doesn’t make a move.

Lena’s suddenly hesitant. She’s not sure where she made a mistake. Kara’s looking at her as if she was the last person on Earth.

Her voice trembles. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize Kara. I should be the one saying sorry.”

“No. No, it’s not that.” Kara tries again. “I just, you caught me by surprise. I guess I never thought of it quite like that. And it hurts even if its not my pain to feel. Does that makes sense?”

Lena could lie and say yes that made sense. But she wasn’t sure where Kara was heading.

“You must have been in so much pain. Even that, those words don’t cover it, do they?”

Lena’s tilts her head to the side. This situation having taken some sort of turn.

“I heard you say, what’s left is what doesn’t fall away. Did I get that right?”

She nods.

“There’s pain there. And I just missed so much of what happened in the years between us when everything happened. I don’t know. I just want to know you. I want to understand what makes you feel like you lost some piece of yourself that you can’t get back. I want to help you heal. Because the Lena that I see she’s a whole person whether she realizes it or not. I just wish I could shine your light back so that you could see it too. It’s always illuminated something, ever since I met you.”

“Kara.”

“I know, I know. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it. But I mean it. There are things we lose. But nothing compares to the feeling of losing yourself. I just, I get it, okay. And I’m sorry you ever felt that way. I hope you don’t feel like that again. That feeling is hopeless and it makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. I know it too. I want to be there for you. If that’s all right.”

Lena takes a breath. “It is.”

“We all deserve more than that. You deserve more than that.”

Lena thinks that Kara makes it sound feasible. Like it coulee be part of her own reality. It’s not that Lena feels that way now. It’s something that lurks on the horizon. With Kara’s presence it’s kept at bay. But she still remembers how it feels, waking up morning after morning not sure who the person looking back at her in the mirror would be. It had been day by day, moment by moment.

She had survived. Lena Luthor was a survivor, through and through. There were things that were lost in the storm. But there were also the parts of her which stayed.

Kara tried to smile at her.

Lena grasped her hand. “You do too.”

They both deserved full lives. To not just merely survive but to live. It wasn’t some sort of instagram or scrapbook worthy moment. It was so utterly imperfectly human. Because sometimes people came back. Life could be shared.What stayed was what didn’t fall away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hot second. I've rewritten this chapter a whole bunch of times. At more than one point it was the end of the story. But then I kept coming back to it because I wasn't satisfied with it. So this story is going to keep being open. I'm not sure what it'll be with them, but it will always be something.  
> As always thank you for reading.


	14. Chapter 14

Lena had met Alex over a dozen times but the first time she met Alex as Kara’s girlfriend she was verging on petrified. Kara spoke about her with reverence. She was as close to perfect as a person could seem to aspire to. She had known Alex to be the ultimate mom friend. If Lena were to give her a title she would call her the mama bear friend. The first time they went out drinking as a group Lena watched Alex cut in each time an ill wanted suitor tried to make their appeal to one of their friends. She could have sworn she broke some guys toes immediately after he had grabbed Kara’s arm promising her a good time.

Alex was fearless and ferocious when it came to defending the people she cared about.

Lena didn’t have someone like that in her life. She didn’t want to mess up. She was most afraid of falling short. She thought that it was the one thing that she was good at after all.

Alex held her eyes for an extra moment when they met up at the quiet bar on campus. Kara was bouncing up and down saying how excited she was that her two favorite people were in one place together.

Alex waited to pounce until Kara excused herself to go to the bathroom. Lena had tried to prepare herself for the shovel talk ahead of time.

“So you’re with my sister.”

“That’s correct.”

“She’s a special person.”

“I agree.”

Alex squints at her. Lena isn’t sure what Alex is measuring her up against. She speaks first. “I don’t deserve her.”

Alex’s expression cracks wide open. “What?”

“I know that Kara is one in a million. People like her don’t just exist in the world.”

Alex’s jaw is slack.

“I have feelings for her Alex. I wouldn’t have acted or let things get where they are unless I did.”

She open and closes her mouth.

“I’m not good when it comes to emotions. But with Kara I want to try.”

They’re interrupted as Kara finds her seat next to Lena again. She grabs her hand on the table weaving their fingers together. “So what did I miss?”

Lena raises an eye brow in Alex’s direction.

They both watch her take a drink. “Just getting to know your girlfriend.”

Kara blushes as she smiles. Lena preens with the title. It was all new for her but she didn’t feel like a stranger there with the two Danvers sisters. In fact she felt like she fit in. She was in the right place at the right time. She gave Kara’s hand a squeeze. Girlfriend. She loved how that sounded.

*****

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you.” She forces herself to say it she thinks that she’s already over the proverbial edge. "I didn’t know how.”

Kara asks her. “Didn’t know what?”

These words are somehow harder still. “How to stay.” 

If Lena didn’t know better she would say that Kara is studying the ground. She hears her but she’s not sure that she intended her to. “Silence is an answer too.”

She stops herself from defending herself. Kara’s not wrong.

“I thought about reaching out to you. It’s embarrassing really. I wrote messages out to you in my head. I typed some of them up almost pressing send. Especially on your birthday or when your company released a new revolutionary product.” Her voice trails off. “I kept telling myself that if you wanted me you had my number that you could reach out.”

There are tears present.

“I didn’t send those messages or any of the letters. I always told myself that if it was going to happen then it would happen.”

She’s trying to be strong.

“I never meant to hurt you.”

Kara looks up into Lena’s eyes. She could never be prepared for the expression or shear force of emotions at play on Kara’s face. It’s not that she’s looking into a mirror and seeing her own emotions play out in front of her. It’s that the one of the people she loved was feeling so much and she was the root cause of it.

She admits it. “I left.”

“You did.”

She feels gritty. It feels like she’s holding on by her finger nails. “I thought I was doing it for the both of us. I had convinced myself of that much. You know, I was wrong Kara.”

She doesn’t actually Lena what she was wrong about. Instead she holds her eyes with her own and she waits for her to go on.

There’s trust involved. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been the conversation in the first place. It took two.

“I was wrong to think that walking away was the right answer. I didn’t spare either of us any pain by doing so. I’ve never known how to stay.”

Kara resents how her voice trembles. “What about now?”

“I’m learning.” She clears her throat that’s somehow not good enough. “You’re teaching me.”

Kara didn’t know how she became the person that stayed. She was convinced that really she was the person that everyone left. That afforded her the only option of being the one who stayed. She didn’t know anything else, not after all the years and the situations she had experienced. She didn’t feel like it made her anything other than human.

Lena says, “I want to be the person who stays. If you’ll have me.”

“Lena?”

“Yeah?”

She’s never said the words aloud. “I am always going to love you.”

Lena’s suffused with lightness.

Kara says it again. “I am always going to love you. I always have.”

She wants to know if Kara’s in love with her. There’s not a doubt in Lena’s mind that she’s in love with Kara. She doubts that there was a moment when she stopped loving her. She asks her. “And now?”

She smiles through the tears. “I love you and I’m _in_ love with you.”

She says it like she means it. It’s the greatest gift. Lena wraps her arms around her.

She wants to make this time there right time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another chapter. I think this one is winding down for the characters. I hope to stick the landing.  
> Thank you for reading and embracing what I'm trying to do with writing this story.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That’s what I want to tell you, I’m going to love you, okay? That’s how I feel and it is. Whatever you feel for me or not. I love you. I have loved you. I will love you. "

The story, that’s what Kara asked herself about. She wrote for a living. This was her trade. She should know better by now. How many articles, episodes and pieces had she written by now. People read and watched what she made. She thought that she should have more faith in her own story then. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to work?

She wasn’t though. After all she felt like the girl who was left. She was not the one to do the leaving, always the one who was left behind. That’s what time had told her again and again. Every day that Lena was in her life she was disproving that but there was always that voice in Kara’s head. The one that said if she left before she could leave again. It made her think and it also made her act. Time was a precious commodity. Both she and Lena could be doing a million other things but there was something that brought them back together. Maybe it was inexplicable but Kara wanted to wrap her hands around it. She wanted to understand. She didn’t know what it was that made people stay. What was louder in her own mind was the fact that she wanted Lena to stay. She wanted everything about her, the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. It wasn’t that she was powerless when she was around. It wasn’t that she was someone else. She wasn’t hiding. It was that she was a version of herself she actually wanted to be.

She wanted it all with Lena but how was she to say it. After the days, the weeks, the years. They were so much to each other. Part of her wondered if what was keeping them together was the not talking about it, not pointing out the fault lines of the relationship. Was that all it would take for a fracture to take place? Would that be the epicenter of the earthquake that would signify the end of their relationship?

It wasn’t a question if it was worth it not. Lena was a person Kara wanted in her life period. Whatever the time, place or situation. It was that something more. She thought back to when they had first gotten together.

It had been in a letter. She had toiled over it, writing and rewriting it. Lena stole her breath away. There was that moment. The ones which couldn’t quite be described or captured. They could be lived and remembered. But saying it somehow never carried the same power as experiencing them first hand.

Lena was like all the colors of the rainbow. Or like walking out to a crisp blue sky after days of snow. There were words, yes. Kara’s job had been to find the words. She had put the words down when it came to her and Lena. She had in letters, in playlists and the tv show. But this, this was different. She could be cliche and say that it was for all the marbles. But that felt false. Because it wasn’t all or nothing with Lena. Lena wasn’t something to be had. She was a person, flesh and blood the same as Kara.

It was time. Kara promised herself that. She had to know. She owed herself that. If it wasn’t soon then it would never happen. She committed herself to it. There were the words and there were the feelings. What Kara knew more than anything was how she felt about Lena.

She’s confused by her words.

Lena’s eyes are focused on a spot above her left shoulder.

She’s trying all the same.

“I didn’t expect it to hurt like it did. Neither did I expect it to feel like it did when I saw your show. Your name came on the screen and it felt like it did all of those years ago.

“I was the one who did the leaving. And I know, I know that I will always live with that. But I want you in my life Kara.

“I could make you promise after promise. But the one thing I’m sure of, the one thing I would swear by is that you make a difference in my life. You make me a better person by being in my life. And it’s taken me years, even if I knew it way back when we were in college, before we even started dating. You’ve always been someone important to me. That never changed.

“I think that if I were being honest the one thing I really want, it is to be with you. That’s my want, my true desire. I don’t know how to say it right but I can feel it all the same.”

Kara’s cheeks were wet. She was choking on her own sobs. She felt like she was three inches outside of her body merely existing while listening to Lena.

They find each other, “That’s what I want to tell you. I’m going to love you, okay? That’s how I feel and it is. Whatever you feel for me or not. I love you. I have loved you. I will love you.”

She asks Lena to say it again.

There’s no hesitation. “I love you Kara Danvers. I have always loved you. I will always love you.”

Lena means it, every single word.

She kisses her and she says it to her on every inch of her skin.

Lena loved Kara Danvers. She loved her and there was no turning back.

The thing was, Kara kissed her back. She kissed her back and it was like her heart sang in her own chest. They weren’t just two people. They were existing together. Two people one heart beat. After everything. This was what love looked like for them.

Lena kissed Kara. And they found how they fit together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last chapter. Nearly four months and twenty-thousand plus words later. Hopefully this story has been satisfactory (and not too repetitious). It was hard settling on an end point for these characters. I wanted them to get together. But the relationship I tried to weave for them was all about them first and foremost connecting emotionally. Those were my intentions. Lena and Kara have something special. These two characters mean a lot to me. This is an AU but all the same these characters love each other whether or not they know how or are aware that they do.  
> There's always something more. But for now this is them. Two people loving each one day after another.  
> Thanks for making this journey with me.


End file.
